Sunday, 15 November 2009

Greece: new tension ahead over police murder

GREEK rebels are preparing for another hot December of resistance, as some significant events loom up on the calendar.

The website After the Greek Riots has reported that Korkoneas and Saraliotis, the murderers of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos (pictured), are to stand trial on December 15th, in the town of Amfissa.

It adds: "With a population of just under 7,000, Amfissa lies approximately 120 km NE of Patras and 210 km NW of Athens. It has been chosen for its small size and poor transport access, in an obvious attempt to to make it harder for people to get there. As if! On December 15th, we’ll be in Amfissa then…

"Before the cops’ trial however, there is the annual commemoration of the anti-dictatorial student uprising of November 17th, 1973. The ministry of public order (in its new doublespeak, ministry of “citizen protection”) is trying to keep the calm ahead of this date – and of course December 6th, the date of Alexis’ assassination, is not too far in the horizon."

The potential for unprecedented levels of insurrection in Greece in the weeks ahead has not gone unnoticed in the UK corporate media.

A hand-wringing liberal-leftist writing on The Guardian's website on November 15, and deploying the term 'terrorism' with notable frequency, said: "In a few weeks, Greece will commemorate the "December events", which began last year when a police officer killed a young boy in Exarhia, an area that's been described as a semi-ghetto of leftist dissidents and anarchists in the centre of Athens.

"Following this event, weeks of protests ensued and from there began a trajectory of decline on many levels of society, which ended with the fall of the undoubtedly inadequate government.

"Then, just three weeks on from the victorious election of a new government, and a wave of grassroots terrorism was making headlines. This was, apparently, unprecedented: it is said that never before had there been a substantial wave of terrorist activities during the honeymoon of a new government."

An overwhelming majority of people are happy to be living in this industrial capitalist world. We know this because we are told it constantly.
How could we foresee a near future in which the hypnotic spell is broken, the scales fall from a billion eyes and those who say 'Enough!' are revealed, all of a sudden, to be a gale force wind of revolt, a tidal wave of insurgent delight sweeping all before it, a minority so vast it will change everything?